


Monday Night.  8:00.

by hufflepirate



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky watches Dancing With the Stars, Bucky's rooting for Amy Purdy, Gen, post - Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1575056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irene Moore is an overworked waitress who doesn't have the patience for weird guys with metal arms.  Bucky Barnes doesn't know where to go or what to do or how to handle the world without orders.  He does know he wants Amy Purdy to win Dancing With the Stars.  And he knows Applebee's has TVs and that Dancing With the Stars airs Monday nights at 8:00.  And that's enough to start making a routine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monday Night.  8:00.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for all the Applebee's details I'm sure are wrong. I've never worked there and don't go that often, but it's a big chain and they have TVs and that was what I needed. So. Yup.

Irene really needed a new job. She really did. She should call her cousin who worked at that swanky restaurant across town.  She bet her cousin didn't have mashed potatoes in her hair right now. She bet her cousin didn't have things thrown at her by kids whose parents were ignoring them. She bet her cousin didn't have a man with a metal arm glaring at her from the corner of the room. He was at her table, too. Perfect.  She walked over to the man, and his face shifted into a carefully blank look, as if he had realized he was glowering and decided to stop. It didn't make her feel much better. Anybody who had a glare that intense as his default expression was probably bad news.  She bet he didn't even tip well.  He had that look about him.

She asked him what he wanted to drink, and his face slid into confusion.  Forcing herself not to roll her eyes, she started listing things at random. "Look, do you want a coke, or what? Lemonade?  Beer?"  She knew she should have started with the more expensive stuff, but it didn't seem like a good idea to encourage this guy to drink, so she stayed away from cocktails and all that.

The man opened his mouth and she quit making guesses. "I . . . water?" he asked tentatively, "Can I just  . . . drink water?"  Or he could be cheap.  This night just kept getting better.

"Yeah," she answered. "I'll get that for you."

The man looked pleased with himself as she walked away. She wasn't sure why, but whatever. At least he wasn't glaring anymore.

By the time she returned with his water, he was engrossed in the tv on the wall across from him, and he seemed calmer. She glanced briefly over at it. _Dancing With The Stars_. There must not be any sports on tonight. But whatever.  If it kept this guy from glaring at her, she'd take it.

The guy looked at the water like he was disgusted by it and made her bring him a new one without ice.  Then he ordered by pointing tentatively at a picture of pasta and asking, "Can I have _that_?" She didn't know what to make of him. She didn't care enough to figure it out.

When the guy's food came, he ate like he was starving, hunched over the plate with his elbows jutting out protectively like he was worried someone would take the food away from him. He only stopped once, sitting up straight to stare at the screen like he was transfixed by it. Irene glanced at the screen. Some girl was dancing with Derek Hough. Not someone famous enough for her to recognize.  She didn't really watch the show, and she couldn't start now.  Not while she was at work.  She caught half a name, Amy, but then one of the kids a few tables over started screaming and she went back to ignoring both the tv and the man in the corner, who hadn't needed a refill on his water for a while and didn't seem to need anything else, either.

The guy paid with a credit card she wasn't completely certain was his.  She didn't check. She didn't want his meal coming out of her paycheck if he didn't pay.  When she brought him the receipt, he seemed to have no idea what to do with it. "Tip?" She looked over his shoulder and supplied him a number that was close to 20%.  She figured she couldn't get away with more.  "Oh," he said, sounding relieved. He wrote the number down. She wondered if she could have gone higher.  He stared at the numbers again for a moment and she supplied him with the final amount. He wrote it down. She wondered if she could have gotten away with a higher number there, too.  Not that it would have mattered, probably.

The guy kept sitting there until _Dancing With the Stars_ was over.  The longer she couldn't get someone new in the table who might tip her on more food than he'd eaten, the more her momentary good spirits toward him faded.

When he showed up the next day, she was glad he was somebody else's problem.  He paid with cash and didn't sit there after he'd eaten.  She wondered why he couldn't have done that with her. But then she found out he hadn't tipped and she figured they were even.

She worked lunch the next day and had Thursday off, but come Friday night, the guy was in her corner booth again. "Dude, you must really like Applebee's," she said instead of hello.

The guy shrugged, the light glinting off his metal shoulder.  "Seen it before. Seemed safe.  Familiar."

It wasn't any weirder than he'd been last time. She shrugged it off. "Anyway, what are you drinking?"

"Water," he said, more confident this time, "No ice.  Please." The rest of the evening went fine. He was closer to normal this time, though he _did_ still order by pointing at a picture of a sandwich instead of reading it off.  He paid with cash, but when she reminded him how much his tip should be (after checking over her shoulder to make sure her manager wasn't watching), he left it on the table.  She rounded up from 20% a little bit.  She'd probably push it a little higher next time.  She was starting to figure he wouldn't know the difference.

She wasn't really surprised to see him there Saturday night, and she was even less surprised to see him Sunday night. She talked him into dessert. The secret was asking him yes-or-no questions instead of giving him an actual choice.  He seemed happy with his sundae, though.  And when prompted, he left her a 30% tip. Yeah.  She could work with this.

Monday night, he sat down at what was quickly becoming his usual corner table and started glaring like he hadn't since the first night he came in.  What was that about? Irene went over to his table, trying to figure out which drink she thought he'd most easily be talked into in place of his usual water, no ice.  But before she could suggest anything, he asked bluntly, "Where's the dancing?" She looked up at the tv. There was a baseball game on.

"Oh, yeah, they usually show the sports stations. There must not have been anything good on last week."  The man grabbed her wrist with his metal hand.  It was cold and felt strong.

His face softened, but in weird intervals that made her think he was forcing it to, forcing himself to look calm. "The man said dancing would be on next Monday at 8.  It's next Monday at 8."

"Look, sir, I can't just change-"

His hand tightened around her wrist and she breathed in sharply.  That hurt! "But the man said Monday at 8. It's Monday at 8." He didn't look angry. He didn't look anything, really, with his face held carefully blank, but what little she could see in his eyes didn't seem like anger.  It seemed like something else.  Desperation maybe.

"Let go of my wrist," she ordered definitively.  He released her immediately.

"It's Monday at 8," he said again softly. She wasn't sure if it was supposed to sound threatening, but as she rolled her wrist, feeling it out until she could determine definitively that yes, it was going to bruise, she couldn't help feeling threatened.

"Fine," she said, "I'll change it. But if you touch me again, you're out of here, got that?  Monday at 8 or not."

The man nodded.  She changed the channel, ignoring the protests of a family sitting nearby, and wondered why she hadn't just had her manager kick him out for hurting her. Or, at least, she wondered why she hadn't bothered trying.  Her manager wasn't the most reliable person, and he cared more about the customers than he did about her anyway.

He sat at the table for the full 2 hours that the show was on, but then he tipped her by emptying out his pockets, and she ended up taking home more than the value of his meal.  Which didn't suck.  He seemed pretty helpless sometimes.  She hoped other people weren't taking advantage of him.  Not that she wasn't going to suggest a 50% tip next time he came in, since he seemed to have no definitive ideas about tipping and she could probably get away with it.  But that wasn't the point.

On the next two Monday nights, she put on ABC as soon as he walked through the door, not wanting a repeat of that second week.

The fifth week, they were even quieter than they usually were on a Monday night.  Metal-arm guy came in and got seated at his usual table.  Irene changed the TV nearest him to _Dancing With the Stars_. When she came to get his drink order, he was as absorbed in it as ever.  "Dude, why do you like this show so much?  You can't even really hear the music in here..."

The guy looked over at her, surprised. "Amy," he answered.

Irene rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I know you do that one word answer thing and it's all mysterious and crap, but I don't really have time to watch that show while I'm working.  Who's Amy?"

The man looked back at the screen. "Amy Purdy. No legs.  Dances anyway."

Irene looked up at the screen in surprise. This Amy person wasn't on it. It was somebody else instead. One of those ice dancers she vaguely remembered from the Olympics.  "Dude, really?"

"She has plastic ones," the man answered. "I don't think they move like my hand."  He looked down at his metal hand and clenched and unclenched his fingers.  "I know they don't.  I don't know why not.  I don't know how mine works."

Irene looked at him in disbelief. This guy didn't talk. Plenty of her chattier coworkers had tried to get him to say something about himself over the last month, and none of them had gotten more than a handful of words out of him. But here he was running his mouth off about prosthetic limbs like he thought she cared.  Which she didn't.  Probably.

"Yeah, dude, that arm's pretty strong. You're lucky I didn't get you banned when you grabbed me with it that one time."

The dude turned to her again. "No," he said, "I have to watch.  Monday nights. 8:00.  I have to watch her win."

Irene raised an eyebrow.  "You really think a girl with no legs is gonna win a dance show?"

This time he really was glaring _at_ her.   It was pretty terrifying.  "She's going to win.  I vote."

Irene decided not to ask him _how_ he voted.  She'd never seen the guy with a phone, and if he couldn't figure out how to order food at a restaurant and calculate tip, she didn't imagine he'd be great with computers.  She had a sudden vision of him stopping random people on the street and ordering them to call the phone number.  He was pretty terrifying, when you didn't realize he was also sort of helpless. "Well, good luck then, dude. I hope she does real well."

"Yes," he answered. "Amy Purdy. No legs.  Dances anyway.  I'm gonna watch her win."

"Yeah, you are," Irene agreed. The guy went back to watching the show, and he didn't say anything else all evening.  But it was kind of cool, actually.  A guy with a metal arm showing up once a week to watch a girl with no legs.  And when he was watching _Dancing With the Stars_ , he'd basically eat anything she put in front of him, even if it was the most expensive thing on the menu.  And then he'd tip her exactly 20%, because one of her softer-hearted coworkers had also figured out that he had no idea what a tip was and had actually explained the rules to him.  But it was better than nothing.  And with the 2-hour show, she could usually talk him into giving her a vague assent when she asked about dessert, and then when she asked about a second dessert after that.  So that didn't suck. Not as badly as it could have, anyway.

When she got home from work, she stopped for a moment by her computer before she went to bed and then, before she could think better of it, pulled up a youtube video of Amy on the show.  The guy with the arm was right.  The lady was pretty awesome.  Irene quietly voted for her before shutting the computer down and falling into bed.  She pretended it wasn't because the guy with the metal arm seemed to care so much. But it sort of was. "Irene Moore, you're getting positively sentimental," she muttered to herself, as she drifted off to sleep.

She kind of hoped Amy really _would_ win, though.


End file.
